Grouping: ur doin' it wrong

Yes you are correct. Each planet has roughly 1 or 2 truely group-oriented Heroics. They are also purely optional, and most can be done in less than 30 minutes each.

It's an MMO. Group content should be the majority of content, not a few optional quests. Designing an MMO to be 95% solo game makes no sense at all. It would seem to be pretty obvious to me that making a multiplayer game actually mutiiplayer for the majority of the play experience would be a no-brainer.

ah, you are one of them old school people.

most people who have disposable income to pay subscriptions ect, rarely have large chunks of time to set aside to find a group for pretty much everything in a game. so modern purpose of an MMO is to make grouping possible and encouraged, but NOT necessary. otherwise, they would make no profit and will no longer manage to exist.

MMO, contrary to what you seem to believe is NOT forced group content. MMO is a persistent world where grouping with a lot of different people is possible and can be fun. which SWTOR actually accomplishes. and encourages, in contrast to quite a few other MMO's on a market, who are successful in their own right but a lot more solo extensive. even old school MMO's the ones that used to require you to group for much of the content, or be unable to progress - have abandoned that model as its not sustainable.

If it is so obvious, and such a great business model, you should start a consulting firm and make millions advising pretty much 100% of the MMO market.

Is there even a single major title that works like you claim should be a no-brainer for the industry? Not one that I've played.

Every MMO before WoW was group-oriented. That was when the industry was thriving and exploding in popularity. Now it's contracting and dying, with most new releases fairing anywhere from fair to terrible.

The facts speak for themself. The industry can't sell subscriptions anymore for the games they are making. If the product is so good, and this is what people want, why can't they attract anywhere close to the numbers EQ had 15 years ago, even when giving it away for free?

Some people can only play 30 minutes at a time, and it can often take longer to get a group than it takes to run an instance. Others have to deal with unavoidable interruptions (i.e., kids) when they play, so committing to a group run is either impossible or irresponsible, when you might have to go /afk or log off for a while halfway through.

There is also a high correlation between people being in the situation of having little time or lots of interruptions, and those same people having more money to spend on the game (in other words, being the ones who dump a lot of cash on stuff like cash shop loot). Making a game that doesn't offer a lot of playable content for those people doesn't make an awful lot of sense from a developer's perspective, assuming that the developer is in this business to make some money.

Having lots of content that you have to group for is good, because requiring a group means it can give good rewards, for the increased time and effort put in. Making a game that requires a group for everything, all the time, is a great way to have a really tiny player base (and a really crappy looking quarterly report).

I don't disagree.

Having solo and group content is essential. They have just shifted far too much to the solo side and the industry is dying because of it.

It's one thing to try and attract new customers. When what you are doing though is killing the market you had, and not actually attracting new customers, then something is terribly wrong with the strategy.

The facts speak for themself. The industry can't sell subscriptions anymore for the games they are making. If the product is so good, and this is what people want, why can't they attract anywhere close to the numbers EQ had 15 years ago, even when giving it away for free?

The industry as a whole is orders of magnitude larger than it was 15 years ago. And the market has gone mainstream now, where 15 years ago it was just nerds making games for nerds (remember when we used to call them nerds?). There are lots of titles that fail, but that's a product of the fact that there are dozens of companies and hundreds of games in release or development at any one time.

If the game is fun and people like playing it, then they will line up around the block to give you their money. A lot of new MMOs are not fun, and people don't enjoy playing them. Many of them just rehash the same tired old model that has been done twenty times before with a new skin, and many game makers are so consumed with trying to make a game that you have to play, they forget to make a game that you want to play. Game companies are no different than other companies in this way; a lot of them just have no good ideas, no ability to execute, and disgusting, condescending attitudes toward their customers. Some don't, and those are the ones that will win once in a while . . . if they're lucky (and if they can get enough money to try).

There is no problem with grouping as it is. There is plenty of content that encourages grouping and there are plenty of Load Screen tips that tell you how. Players will find a group or they won't, that's all there is to it. There is no fix that needs to be made specific to grouping (repair costs are not group specific and do need looking into).

I was hoping this thread would be about Assassins/Shadows who use their Force Pushback in groups, making all group AoEs useless.

That is annoying and if I happen upon a PUG where someone is doing that I will ask them politely to stop once. If it continues I will boot them from the group. I always lead my groups, so I can do that.

That is annoying and if I happen upon a PUG where someone is doing that I will ask them politely to stop once. If it continues I will boot them from the group. I always lead my groups, so I can do that.

Some people just get too used to their solo ability-use rotation, I suppose. I give warning twice, politely. I'm usually not group leader, unless with guildies. Usually its when I PUG, responding to people asking for help. After I ask twice, I just ditch the group and let the offender deal with the fallout. And I try to be clear, its nothing personal, I just can't keep reviving people every 2 minutes.

Then there's the players that get offended when you ask them to stop doing that. Those are my favourites.

And, appearantly, repair cost are going to be lowered again, saw an announcement about it:

Quote:
Originally Posted by JovethGonzalez

Hi everyone,

Thank you all for your feedback on the changes to repair costs introduced with Game Update 1.7. Upon review, we agree with you that repair costs did become too high with this latest Game Update. To that end, we will be making a change to how these repair costs are calculated, starting with our next scheduled maintenance. Repair costs will now be calculated based on the combined value of all the mods installed in the shell, excluding the value of the shell itself. Players will see a noticeable reduction immediately after the change goes in.

Additionally, we’d like to apologize for the inconvenience that we introduced.

As a thank you for your patience during this time, we will also be reducing ALL repair costs by 50% once the aforementioned change goes in with the next scheduled maintenance. This will last all the way through until early access to Rise of the Hutt Cartel launches.

Your feedback is important to us, and we hope that this resolution alleviates the repair costs concerns. Thanks again for your patience.

So, there's some good news. At least they are listening to something from their players, and are trying to make amends.

MMO, contrary to what you seem to believe is NOT forced group content. MMO is a persistent world where grouping with a lot of different people is possible and can be fun. which SWTOR actually accomplishes. and encourages, in contrast to quite a few other MMO's on a market, who are successful in their own right but a lot more solo extensive. even old school MMO's the ones that used to require you to group for much of the content, or be unable to progress - have abandoned that model as its not sustainable.

Thank you. I keep saying this and the people do not understand me.
I also think in a MMO, I should be able to log in and..

NOT have to solo because I cannot find someone. That is a lie, I see plenty of people who can join me because only in a dead game would I be truly alone. It is just hard in this game to get in contact with them because of this clunky planet system. In FF11, I can log in and find people who are doing the same quests or whatever. We group up then we move on. In the time I played COH, everyone would put up messages in thier search system, so I can look for specific classes, levels and read your personal message. In Champions, I never needed a guild at all. I can literally stand there and find people for NEMCON. The people were ready and willing. In DFO, you go to a specific server for specific areas, so everyone in your server will be in your level range and doing the same quests.

SWTOR has features to get people to group more often. All of the stories are CO-OP, social points gives you rewards, and Heroics gives gear and comms. It is not the companions and the story; I think no one wants to play at another person's pace anymore.
For anyone who has leveled up toons from 1-50 with another person, they know it is not repair costs and XP.

and the Force beat generic Swords and Magic any day. 8/26/14 That was my old signature but after RotHC, I went back to superheroes and swords and magic. Now waiting on Dragon Age and a SWTOR story expac for my Bioware fix 7/30/15 Returned for KotFE. Finally, a story expac.

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The statements and opinions expressed on these websites are solely those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, nor are they endorsed by Bioware, LucasArts, and its licensors do not guarantee the accuracy of, and are in no way responsible for any content on these websites.